


Leader Ship: Divorce.

by signifying_nothing



Category: EXO (Band), K-pop
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 18:43:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4756973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/signifying_nothing/pseuds/signifying_nothing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leadership: Kim Joonmyeon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leader Ship: Divorce.

“Joonmyeon?”

“Not now.”

“But--”

“I said _not now._ ”

The bedroom door closed and Joonmyeon took a slow breath. He knew he should have been out there, with them, but he just... Needed a moment. He needed to breathe, to... Process. What was happening.

It had been bad enough when Kris _left._ Disappeared. Joonmyeon felt the pressure more keenly, felt it's weight on his chest. It just grew heavier when Lu Han left them. And then Zitao.

He pressed his palm to his eye and ducked his head. There was no one in the room to see him cry but he didn't want to risk seeing his own reflection. He felt betrayed. He felt like... He'd been abandoned. _Divorced,_ Baekhyun had joked, or tried to. He'd cried. They'd all... Been upset, but Joonmyeon had spent so much time trying to hold the rest of them together that he'd sort of... Forgotten about himself. Every time one of them stumbled across a piece of clothing or a CD, a hat or weird knick-knack that belonged to one of... One of them, it felt like the wound was being ripped open all over again, salt ground into it.

Did the room always feel so big? Kris's empty closet loomed in the corner like a gargoyle. Joonmyeon walked to it, touched the cool doors and opened one.

The only things inside were a snapback, some jewelry. A pair of t-shirts, hung up neatly. He'd always been so messy, Kris. He'd needed Joonmyeon to keep him organized. For all that he was supposed to be a leader, he'd been pretty bad at it. He was good in front of cameras, but back here, in real life, he'd been easily overwhelmed, easily pushed to suffocating stress. No amount of attempted help had stopped him from leaving.

He'd left.

Joonmyeon closed the closet and sank down with his back to it, pressing his hand to his eye. He'd expected to be angry, he'd expected to be hateful. He wanted to be hateful. They'd _abandoned him,_ they'd abandoned this group, these young men they'd been with for years. They'd fucking walked away from the wreckage they were slowly becoming but Joonmyeon couldn't hate them for that. Instead he hated the situation they were in. It wasn't fair. He knew it wasn't fair, he knew they were being treated badly, unfairly, he knew Kris resented it and he hadn't even tried to speak up on his behalf, he hadn't even tried to... Say anything. He'd been too scared.

They were all too scared. And now Han was gone, Zitao was gone.

He swallowed back tears. He couldn't cry. Not when Baekhyun was so fragile even the _mention_ of Zitao would push him to crying, not when Kyungsoo still covetously kept one of Kris's beloved alpacas in his bed, refusing to put it in the closet, refusing to let go of it.

He had to be strong for them, these kids. He had to be an example, he had to handle himself, and he wasn't proving he could do that by hiding in his bedroom. He got up, pushed back his hair and took a deep breath. He wasn't crying. He wasn't upset. He was... Divorced. Kris wasn't there anymore, and he'd taken two of the kids with him. That was all.

He closed his laptop as he walked by. He didn't look at the article, the photos of Kris with no hair and a grin, rings on his fingers, his cheeks fuller than they had been in months and somehow he looked incredible. He looked... He looked happy.

“Joonmyeon?”

Yixing's voice was delicate. He'd known before they did, of course. The Chinese media had been reporting on it before the Korean press. Joonmyeon felt terrible for him. He was the last and the hate he was getting from the public was incredibly toxic, incredibly vicious.

“Yeah,” Joonmyeon asked, offering a small smile. “Yeah, what is it.”

“Are you okay?”

It seemed that was all they were asking one another, these days. _Are you okay?_ Like the loss of their group mates was equivalent to their deaths, like they were gone forever, instead of alive outside of their sphere of closeness.

“...Yeah,” he said, offering the other man a tight smile. “Yeah, I'm okay. Are you?”

“...No,” Yixing replied, but Joonmyeon couldn't help admiring the way he smiled anyway.

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

“I don't think so.”

Joonmyeon drew Yixing into a hug anyway. Now was the time to be gentle with each other. It was necessary. They were weak, now, shaken still from the year of loss. But gentle strength would hold them together, he was sure. He just had to hold them together.

“It'll be okay,” Joonmyeon said, and Yixing nodded into his shoulder, taking slow, measured breaths. “Come on, you have to leave in the morning, right? Let me make dinner.”

Joonmyeon led him into the kitchen. In the silence he made a simple meal, let Yixing help in small ways. Slowly the rest of them filtered in and out, all of them in various states of... Shock, Joonmyeon supposed. It was one thing to find out your group mates had disappeared. It was another thing entirely to learn that the three of them together were suing the company you still worked for, for how badly they'd been treated.

Joonmyeon supposed that if he'd talked to them more, he might have known more about it. But Kris had never been a talker, and Han... But Zitao. Zitao should have been able to come to him, and he hadn't.

“Eat,” he said, pushing the bowl of stew into Yixing's hands. “Eat. I don't want you to be hungry on the plane.”

“Thanks mom,” Yixing said, smiling like a mischievous child, his dimple appearing on his cheek.

“Aish,” Joonmyeon swatted him on the backside. “If I'm your mother, go get your brothers so I can feed them, too.”

Something about it made Yixing relax and Joonmyeon smiled. He could... He could make it through. He had his own kind of strength. He could hold them together. He could hold fast and make sure...

“Mom,” Yixing called. “Jongdae won't get out of bed~”

“I am too!”

“Liar!”

“Am _not!_ ”

Joonmyeon couldn't help but laugh as Jongdae stumbled out into the hallway, clearly awakened from a nap, his hair sticking up everywhere.

They were going to be okay.

Joonmyeon was going to make sure of it.


End file.
